Redemption, a POLICE WOMAN fanfic
by Rainsmom
Summary: A POLICE WOMAN fan-fic. Bill's and Pepper's faiths are tested when they investigate the attempted of a man claiming to be a faith healer. My first story on this forum.
1. Chapter 1

"A four year old took out your knee?" Bill Crowley's voice was incredulous.

Joe Styles, a tall, black man who usually looked like he'd be more comfortable on an athletic field than in a police cruiser, shifted his crutches into his right hand and eased himself into his desk chair, grimacing as he hefted his right leg onto a wooden chair his partner placed in front of him. "That kid has a future with the Rams. Tore my ACL."

Bill groaned and shook his head. At least, he decided, it didn't happen until after they wrapped up the Calabrese case. Bill shuddered to think what would have happened to their case if Joe had gotten hurt earlier. Of course, he'd hardly seen his kids in two months, so when would he have had the opportunity?

Oh well, Bill decided, at least this would give Joe a chance to rest. He needed it. So did Pepper. His gaze drifted to his blond partner. Assignments like the Calabrese case took a lot out of her. Dark circles shadowed her eyes. She'd tried to hide them with makeup, but he could see them.

Oblivious to the scrutiny from her partner, Pepper Anderson patted Joe's shoulder sympathetically. "How long are you going to be stuck on a desk?"

Joe's face fell. "Two months. Doc says they'll do surgery next week, then a week of recuperation, and then at least six weeks of physical therapy. Man, I'm gonna go crazy on a desk."

"It won't be the same without you, partner," Pete said, with a gallant tip of his cap.

Bill rubbed the back of his neck. It wasn't going to be easy to replace Joe. He and Pete worked well together, and Bill counted on them to back up him and Pepper. "Pete, can you handle riding solo for a week? Michelle Adams has temporary duty with that drug task force starting next week. You and Frank Dietz can partner up after that."

Pete shrugged. "Sounds okay to me."

"What happened to you?" The team swung in unison to see Lt. Paul Marsh entering the squad room. Marsh, like Bill, was a career cop who never wanted to leave the street. He'd stayed there for the first twenty years of his career, until a bullet - and his wife - had finally driven him to accept promotion to lieutenant and the reins of Robbery/Homicide. He was a good administrator, but internal politics had given him chronic digestive problems, and, even after ten years, Bill could see a certain wistfulness in his eyes when a particularly exciting case came around. In his heart, Paul Marsh was always going to be a street cop.

The older man frowned at the brace on Joe's knee. "That looks painful."

Joe snorted. "I'm the victim of a dirty tackle by a budding four-year-old football player."

"Ouch." Paul touched Bill's shoulder. "Can I talk to you and Pepper for a minute?"

"Sure." Bill motioned toward his office. "What's up?" he asked after he shut the door.

Paul leaned against the desk. "I've got a case for CCU." Pepper motioned toward the coffee pot, but he shook his head and focused on the conversation. "Someone is trying to kill a minister visiting a small inner-city church in Echo Park. Took a shot at his car."

"Tough congregation," Pepper said.

Bill frowned. "How is attempted murder CCU business?"

"The intended victim has apparently been receiving death threats." He handed him a typed note.

Succinct and to the point: _Satan will welcome you home._ Bill scanned it and handed it to Pepper. "Somebody seems unimpressed. Who is he?"

"Name is Albert Hinton. Baptist minister. Comes from a little town in West Tennessee but doesn't seem to live anywhere now. He and his wife travel church to church."

Bill looked over the note again. "Why haven't we heard about this before?"

Paul's eyes shone with a glint Bill couldn't decipher. "Because neither the attempt on the guy's life nor the death threats were initially reported."

Pepper's eyebrow rose. "Not reported?"

"The guy's wife is in my office. She's got one heck of a story. I think you two should talk to her."

Bill and Pepper made eye contact, and Bill shrugged. "Let's do it."

.

Florence Hinton was a rather round black woman with graying hair and a face that would have been pretty had it not been creased with deep lines of worry. She sat straight, met their eyes directly, and held her chin up almost defiantly, but beneath the bravado, she seemed wary, and Bill wondered if she'd had unpleasant interactions with the police before. Even Pepper's warm smile failed to thaw her chilly demeanor.

"Mrs. Hinton," Paul said when the introductions were complete, "tell Sgts. Crowley and Anderson what you told me."

The woman regarded him soberly for a moment, then drew herself up and said, "I want you to prove my husband is a fraud."

Bill blinked and glanced at Paul whose eyes were shining even brighter. "I'm sorry, I'm confused. I thought your husband was a minister."

"That's correct."

"And someone is trying to kill him."

"Yes."

Bill opened his mouth as if to ask another question, then shut it, confounded. Pepper just stared at the woman with a puzzled frown. Florence Hinton looked down and regarded her hands for a long moment, then took a deep breath and began her story.

"My husband and I come from Covington, Tennessee, a little town about an hour north of Memphis. He used to have a church there. Nothing big, but we liked it, and the congregation was faithful and God-fearing. Then he got the Gift, and it all changed. Couldn't stay home anymore. Once word got out, people were calling on us nonstop, all hours of the day and night. Couldn't get away from 'em. If we didn't answer the door, people just slept on the lawn."

Bill and Pepper looked at each other, no less enlightened than they'd been a moment before. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Hinton," Pepper said. "What gift?"

The woman looked at Paul as if to ask for help, but when no help was forthcoming, she sighed and her shoulders crumpled with resignation. "The Gift of healing," she said. "My husband is a faith healer."

Bill's confusion turned to incredulity and then to rising anger. Faith healing? Paul brought them in for this nonsense? He looked at the older officer, hoping he would declare this nothing but a joke. The man's eyes were bright with suppressed amusement, but he showed no sign of calling off the farce. Bill clenched his teeth and tried to think of a polite response. To his relief, Pepper stepped in.

"A faith healer," his partner repeated. "And by faith healer, you mean…"

"I mean he lays hands on people and cures them. Of disease. Injury. Whatever. He heals them."

"And someone is trying to kill him." Pepper sounded somewhat bewildered, as if she couldn't quite parse the words.

Mrs. Hinton nodded. "The threats started a few weeks ago. We were in a little town in northern California called Yreka. At first they just warned us to leave. Albert - my husband - wasn't concerned about the notes, but it was about time for us to move on anyway. Then the threats started coming in the next town as well. And the next. And now here. Each note's a little worse."

"Did you report the threats?" Pepper asked. The woman shook her head. "Why not?"

"Albert didn't want to. He said it was just a non-believer. Somebody scared of what he does. Said words wouldn't hurt him."

"But somebody took a shot at him."

The woman studied her hands and nodded. "Day before yesterday. When he was leaving the church after his first revival in this area."

"Day before yesterday?" Bill couldn't keep the scorn out of his voice. "Words may not hurt him, but I bet a bullet would. Or would he just heal himself?"

"Bill!" Pepper chided.

"He wouldn't let me report it!" the woman protested at the same time.

Bill leaned over the desk into her space. "Why not?" he demanded. "Someone takes a shot at me, lady, I sure as hell want to know who it is."

"I don't know," she said just as firmly, her gaze unflinching. "He won't tell me."

Pepper touched Bill's arm. He glared at Mrs. Hinton a moment longer, then reluctantly backed off, irrational anger roiling in his gut.

Florence Hinton raised her chin a shade higher. "My husband is a proud man, and sometimes he keeps his own counsel. Too often sometimes." Bill turned away from her and stared out the window. She shifted her gaze to Pepper. "He does what he believes is right. And so do I. That's why I'm here, Sgt. Anderson. I want you to prove my husband is a fraud."

"That shouldn't be too difficult," Bill groused without looking back at them.

A faint smile passed over her lips. "You'd be surprised, Sgt. Crowley."

"I still don't understand," Pepper said. "Why prove he's a fraud? Why not find the crackpot who's trying to kill him?"

"And what about the next crackpot? And the next?"

"Have there been other threats?" Bill asked.

She shook her head. "No, but we're hounded everywhere we go. Skeptics and believers alike. Always the same. If you prove he's a fraud, then everyone will leave us alone." Her eyes took on a faraway look. "When Albert was just a country minister he used to be so happy. Could hardly find a time he wasn't whistling or humming or singing." She gave her head a little shake. "Can't remember the last time I saw him smile, much less heard him sing." Her sad eyes focused on Pepper's. "I want to go home, Sgt. Anderson."

.

Bill managed to paste a polite smile on his face when they walked Mrs. Hinton out, but when he turned back toward his office, the smile faded and the frustration he'd felt in Paul's office flared fresh. "This is ridiculous," he complained to Pepper, who had to jog to keep up with his strides. "Real cases needing work, and we're wasting time on a _faith healer_ who doesn't even care if someone is trying to kill him."

He slammed the door to his office and poured himself a cup of coffee. "_He used to sing_," he sneered.

Before he could get the cup to his lips, his partner took it from his hands, pushed a stack of folders aside, and settled on the edge of his desk. "Thanks," she said.

He glanced at her as he poured himself another cup. Her eyes were sparkling, and it was clear she was having trouble suppressing a smile. "You're enjoying this," he accused. "You think this is funny?"

She shook her head. "The case? No. Honestly, I think it's kind of sad."

"Sad." He set the coffee pot down a little harder than necessary. "Committing fraud against untold numbers of desperate people?" He opened the top drawer of the filing cabinet and searched for the Calabrese folder. He still had hours of paperwork to do on that case, including ensuring his people had turned in receipts for every item on their lengthy expense reports. He wondered idly if he could foist that task onto Paul Marsh in thanks for foisting the Hinton case onto him.

Pepper sipped at her coffee, peering at him over the rim of the cup. "What if it isn't fraud?"

He tossed the file onto his desk and slammed the filing cabinet shut. "Oh come on, Pep. It's faith healing. What else could it be?" He sat in his chair and flipped open the folder. When his partner didn't answer, he looked up at her. Her fingernails were making patterns in the Styrofoam cup, but she met his gaze steadily. "You can't be serious."

"Come on, Bill. You're Catholic. Jesus performed healings all the time."

"You're equating this guy with Jesus?"

"Not at all. I'm just pointing out that there are precedents."

"I prefer my precedents to have less than two thousand years between them." He pulled out the first expense report in the file and tried to focus on it.

"Okay, what about the Miracles at Lourdes? That was only, what, a hundred years ago? People still claim the waters there have healing properties." When no response was forthcoming, she said, "So, what, you don't believe modern-day miracles are possible?"

"I didn't say that," he replied, too annoyed to ignore her baiting. "I just don't think they're probable. If God were going to perform a miracle, why would He do it through some carnival sideshow like a faith healer's tent? There are plenty of good, honest people who work and pray and live right every day. Where's the miracle when they get sick?"

His voice had gotten overloud, and an uncomfortable silence settled over the office. Bill looked down at the expense report without really seeing it. No reason to yell at her, he chided himself. Damn case was causing problems and they hadn't even started it yet.

"You're probably right," Pepper conceded. "Shouldn't take much to clear this case. Pete and Joe and I can handle it. Why don't you just finish those expense reports? And don't even think about denying that Halston dress. If I hadn't shown up in a designer label, Calabrese never would have bought my cover."

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. His head was aching. "No. Whether they reported them promptly or not, threats were made, and someone tried to kill the guy. That makes this case legitimate CCU business." He stood up and retrieved his jacket. "You and I will follow up with Rev. Hinton. I want to be there when you see for yourself what kind of fraud this guy is." She followed him to the door.

"Mrs. Hinton has provided a list of towns her husband perpetuated this scam in over the past year," he continued. "I want Pete and Joe to start checking for complaints against the good reverend. I can't help but wonder if they're not moving from town to town for a reason other than too much popularity."


	2. Chapter 2

When Bill's family moved from Texas to Los Angeles in 1950, South Central Los Angeles referred to an area bordered by Washington and Main along the north and west, and by Slauson Ave and Alameda on the south and east. By now though, the boundaries had expanded to include all of the areas of Los Angeles lying south of the Santa Monica Freeway, east of Inglewood and Culver City, and north of the Century Freeway.

The area was initially populated largely by blacks but lately immigrant populations from Latin America and Asia had begun moving here. Despite its reputation, the area wasn't all poor, not by a long shot. But it did have more than its share of poor people and far more than its share of crime. Two new street gangs called the Crips and the Bloods had been fighting over turf in this area in the past few years, and their wars were public and bloody and fraught with unintended victims. The police had been unable to control the rising violence, and many of the residents, still stinging from the Watts Riots ten years ago, harbored deep resentment and distrust toward law enforcement.

Still, as Bill turned the car onto South Central Ave and headed toward Hyde Park, a neighborhood smack in the middle of South Central Los Angeles, his eye noticed that the renovations and neatly-kept yards outnumbered the down-on-their-luck lounging on street corners. The people who lived here were, by and large, honest and hard working folks who were doing the best they could for their families.

The Bethlehem Baptist Church was on the single block of East Gage Avenue that, for some unfathomable reason, was renamed East 64th Street. According to the schedule provided by Florence Hinton, Albert Hinton, however, was a block away at a county park, holding a "prayer meeting and faith healing." As Bill and Pepper drew near, it was easy to see why they'd chosen the park instead of the church for the meeting. Despite the mid-day, mid-week hour, literally hundreds of people had gathered for the spectacle, a sea of bodies pressing into a central pavilion from all sides.

Bill scanned the area, noting the tall buildings along the sides of the park and the high ceiling and open sides of the pavilion itself. A platform had been built to make the speaker more visible to the crowd and more visible he was - Bill could see him from the road. "This guy really does have a death wish," he muttered. "If someone is trying to kill him, he's a sitting duck out there."

A flash from a rooftop caught his eye. Pepper must have seen it too, because before he could speak, she yelled "Gun!"

Bill floored the accelerator, careening their car around a corner, then slammed on the brakes to skid to a stop directly in front of the building where the shooter lay in wait. "Call for backup," he yelled, already half out of the car. "And get Hinton off that platform!"

.

It took less than fifteen seconds to relay their location and the request for backup to Dispatch, but with a gunman on the roof, it was a long fifteen seconds. An instant later, Pepper was out of the car, gun drawn, assessing the situation. High above her, she could see the barrel of a rifle extended over the edge of the roof, still, focused on its target.

She didn't have to follow its trajectory to know where it was aimed, but she looked toward the packed pavilion anyway. There was no way she could get to Hinton in time, and he'd never hear her over the crowd. Something… there had to be something…. She dove back in the car and switched on the siren. The piercing sound didn't cause even a ripple in the crowd, but the gun barrel above her wavered.

That was the chance she needed. Pepper ran toward the pavilion, gun pointed at the ground, calling, "Police! There's a gun! Clear the area!" The crowd didn't move at first, so intent the people were on Hinton's show. The second time she yelled, they began to stir. The third time, someone finally saw the weapon in her hand and shouted, "Gun!"

The crowd broke and ran in a panic. Not what she'd intended exactly, but it cleared a path to the pavilion and, she confirmed looking over her shoulder, the gunman was no longer visible on the rooftop. Gone where? She paused long enough to scan the building but saw nothing. Until she knew, Hinton wasn't safe. She took off at a run again.

The chaos of the park ended at the pavilion. The people inside hadn't moved and seemed oblivious to the panic outside. The sea of bodies parted to let her in, but after a curious glance toward her, they focused on the black man standing on the podium. She hesitated. The air was different here. A soporific calmness enveloped her like a warm blanket. Her fingers loosened around her gun, and she would have dropped it had she not in the next moment remembered why she was there. Hinton. The gunman.

Her fingers tightened on her gun, and she swung her body partway around so she could guard against anyone coming from the building. "I'm Sgt. Anderson with the LAPD," she said in a crisp, no-nonsense tone. "There's a shooter on the roof across the street. Rev. Hinton, I need you to come with me!"

Her words sounded ridiculous, even to her own ears.

The man on the podium - Hinton, she presumed - met her eyes. For an instant, she glimpsed a profound sadness but it vanished so quickly, she wasn't sure she'd seen it at all. Then, incongruently, she thought she saw a faint smile ghost across his face. Rev. Hinton sighed and shrugged his hands in a gesture that was simultaneously welcoming and resigned. "Thy will be done," he said, lifting his eyes skyward.

"You have to get off the podium," she repeated.

He shook his head and motioned to two people in front of him. Sitting on pallets on the floor of the podium, they had been invisible to Pepper before. An older woman, body twisted with the effects of a stroke, and a painfully pale child regarded her with wide, frightened eyes. "These people can't run," he said in a soft southern accent that both soothed and brooked no discussion, "and I won't leave them."

He raised his hands to the congregation. "Let us pray."

.

The shooter had chosen an abandoned warehouse for his perch, not only because it afforded a good vantage point but also because it offered an easy way in and out without inconvenient witnesses. The front doors were chained shut, but on the loading dock, Bill found a door held open by a milk crate - put there by the gunman, he assumed. Inside the building, there was an elevator to his left and stairs to his right. Gunman would need the fastest trip down - stairs. Bill headed up two at a time.

He had just rounded the corner on the landing to the third floor when a man heading the opposite direction popped into view above him. Their eyes met for a brief, startled moment, then the man slid to a stop and scrambled back the way he'd come.

"Police! Hold it!" Bill yelled, but the man was already out of sight. Bill swore and took off in pursuit, already cataloguing the details: Caucasian male, mid-thirties, short blond hair and beard, approximately six feet tall, one hundred eighty pounds. And the most important detail of all - carrying a rifle.

At the third floor, Bill paused to assess his surroundings. No sign of the gunman on the stairs above him, nor was there the sound of running footsteps. Gun at the ready, he scanned the mostly vacant space. For the shooter, the empty building had only one drawback: the vast open spaces provided few hiding places, but for that, Bill was grateful.

"There's nowhere to hide up here," he yelled. "Throw out that rifle and give up before you get yourself shot." His voice echoed hollowly across the space. No reply. He slid into the shadows, hoping to make himself a less visible target.

Scaffolding was erected near the stairs, but after a cursory scan, he disregarded it as a possible hiding place. Only a monkey could have gotten up the first platform fast enough that Bill wouldn't have seen or heard him. A stack of abandoned crates provided the most likely hiding places. He edged his way to them, swinging around corners gun first, but there was nothing. His own breath sounded overloud in his ears and sweat ran down his forehead. The air, thick with dust, was hot and hard to breathe.

A creaking near the stairs whirled him around again. He ducked around a crate and then peered cautiously around the corner. Nothing. There was nothing.

There.

Dust swirled in the light cascading through one dirty window. Dust near the scaffolding adjacent to the stairs. Bill slipped behind the crates and made his way along the wall. He kneeled and paused at the opening to the space between the crates and the stairwell. If the shooter were on the scaffolding, he would have a clear shot at him out there. He searched the shadowed platforms but it was too dark up there to see more than vague shapes. He had to risk it.

Three steps - four - and he was against the stairwell. He peered around the edge. Still nothing. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe the gunman had gotten to another floor. Even as he had the thought, he discarded it. The shooter hadn't had time. Bill inched along the railing toward the scaffolding. If he climbed up there, he'd have a good vantage of the whole floor.

Something clattered behind him, and he spun instinctively to face it. An instant later something heavy smashed into his right side, sending him hard against the stair railing. There was a massive crack, and for a moment he was suspended in space. He came down hard on his left shoulder. The shooter landed across him, knocking the wind out of him. The guns - both his pistol and the rifle - flipped down the stairs to the landing below.

Despite the pain lancing through his chest and down his arm, Bill grabbed at the gunman. The man swung his upper body desperately trying to break free. It was a lucky swing; his elbow caught Bill in the cheek. Bill's grip loosened, and the man slipped from his grasp and half slid, half rolled to the bottom of the stairs.

Not willing to give up, Bill threw himself toward the landing, knocking the man against the wall. Like a snake, the shooter slithered from his grasp, kicking hard at his chest to force him back. Bill started to lunge at him again, but suddenly the barrel of the rifle was inches from his face. He froze and looked past the barrel to the blue eyes of the gunman.

"Don't make me shoot you," the man said. "I don't want to kill you. Just him."

"You haven't done it yet. Just put the gun down, and we'll talk…."

"Shut up!" The man wiped sweat from his forehead and glanced down the stairs. With a swift slide of his foot, he kicked Bill's pistol to the first floor, then, warning Bill to stay put, he backed his way downstairs to the door. He paused long enough to give the pistol a second kick, sending it sliding into the darkness of the warehouse, and then he bolted outside.

By the time Bill recovered his gun, the shooter was gone. He swore and kicked the door, and then leaned against it, trying to catch his breath. Damn, his shoulder hurt. He kicked the door again.

He was halfway back to the car when he realized he didn't have his badge. He turned and trudged back to the building. The badge lay on the landing to the second floor where they'd grappled. When he bent to pick it up, a brightness in the corner caught his eye. He frowned and looked closer. A small, round piece of metal.

He picked it up and squinted at it, recognizing it immediately. A patron saint medal. Lots of police carried a St. Michael medal. "Give us cool heads, stout hearts, and uncanny flair for investigation and wise judgment." He murmured the traditional prayer to St. Michael automatically. This wasn't St. Michael though. He didn't recognize this saint. He dropped it in his pocket and headed back downstairs.

.

Sirens - backup, he assumed - drew close from the east side of the park, but Bill wasn't focused on them. Where were Hinton and Pepper? With the shooter still out there somewhere, Hinton wasn't safe yet.

The sea of people in the park had scattered but now groups here and there were merging around a center point once more. The pavilion? Surely they weren't still there. But, sure enough, he saw people in the center of the structure. A seething anger gripped his belly. What the hell was Pepper doing? He specifically told her to get Hinton out of there. With a last glance over his shoulder to be sure the shooter was gone, he jogged into the park, mentally rehearsing some choice words for Sgt. Pepper Anderson. The press of humanity was so thick he thought he would have to flash his badge and gun to be let through, but somehow a path opened before him, a path that took him right into the pavilion and right to his blond partner.

He felt a change as soon as he crossed the threshold of the wooden structure. His skin seemed to vibrate, as if the very air were electric. Although the pavilion was completely open on all sides, the sounds from outside became strangely hushed. Underlying that muted rumbling, he could hear a low hum. Or maybe he just felt it.

Pepper turned and met his eyes. He was struck by the softness in her face, the lack of tension in her stance. Her gun hung by her side. Didn't he have something he wanted to say to her? He couldn't remember, and it didn't seem very important anyway.

She frowned suddenly and glanced toward the building. Bill shook his head. Her gaze sharpened and ran from his bruised cheek to his mussed clothes, lingering on the arm he held protectively close to his body. He shook his head again, dismissing the question in her look; he was fine. With a jerk of her head, she directed his attention to the middle of the structure.

In the center of the platform had been placed a simple folding chair, and in the chair sat a middle-aged black man. Rev. Hinton was not what Bill expected. His body was slouched, as if the mere weight of it was too much. His skin was sallow, and he looked tired. No, not just tired. Ill. Florence Hinton had been in her late forties, but Albert Hinton appeared to be in his mid-sixties at least. Why was this old, sick man doing this? Maybe he was being forced to perpetuate this fraud by someone else.

On a pallet in front of Rev. Hinton lay an old woman. Her left side seemed drawn toward her, paralyzed perhaps, but it was hard to see well enough to tell. It seemed to Bill that the show would be more effective if they set up their stage so their main actors were more easily seen by the audience. He wondered briefly why the crowd hadn't complained, but clearly, despite the limited view, they hadn't. Everyone was rapt on the scene in front of them.

Rev. Hinton was leaning toward the woman, touching her forehead with one hand, conversing with her in a voice too low for Bill to hear. He nodded, and then turned his attention to the man sitting at her head. Bill hadn't noticed him until now. He was a few years older than the woman, and he rested a protective hand on her shoulder. Her husband, he guessed.

The reverend smiled at the man, and though the smile was weak, even Bill felt the reassurance in it. "Tell me about her," Rev. Hinton said to the man, and then he held his hands above the woman and closed his eyes. The hum in the room seemed to grow louder, and Bill felt the tiny hairs on his neck rise.

The man seemed oblivious to the change in the energy in the room. All that existed for him at that moment was his wife. He gazed down at her, a beatific smile on his face. "She's my life," he said, stroking her hair. "We met on the street one day when we were just teens. I'd seen her getting off the school bus, and I thought she was the prettiest girl I'd ever seen. I asked to walk her home, and she told me off good for being too forward. I walked her home anyway, that day and every day after. We got married the day after she graduated from high school, and we've been married for fifty four years. We've got six children, fourteen grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren, and she's still the prettiest girl I've ever seen.

"She had her first stroke six years ago, and it took away most of her speech. I do my best to take care of her. I cook and I clean and I help her get dressed and help her with… personal things. I know she gets depressed and frustrated sometimes because I have to do those things. She just doesn't understand that it doesn't matter. I'd spend eternity taking care of her, as long as it meant we were together. I don't think my heart would beat if she weren't with me."

Bill swiped at moisture in his eyes and glanced at Pepper. She had made no attempt to hold back her tears; her face was wet. He was so caught up in the man's story, Bill almost forgot to watch Rev. Hinton. As the man talked, the reverend murmured to himself, eyes closed. Bill expected something dramatic, but the actual change, when it came, happened gradually, slowly, and without fanfare. The woman's body began to straighten, the perpetually contracted muscles loosening for the first time in years. Her face changed, the slack muscles of her left side, relaxing and then spreading into a smile.

Simultaneously, the reverend's body began to curl into itself, one side of his face sliding into a tell-tale droop. "My God, he's having a stroke!" Bill thought. Yet no one around him reacted, at least not until he almost fell from his chair. Then a young black man stepped forward and wrapped his arms around him to hold him upright.

That somehow signaled the end of the show. The old man on the platform helped his wife rise to her feet, joyful smiles wreathing their faces. Hinton nodded to them but remained in his chair as they were shown off the platform. Then he managed to lift an arm and, in strangled, sometimes unintelligible tones, prayed aloud. "And now, O Lord God, thou art that God, and thy words be true, and thou hast promised this goodness unto thy servant: therefore now let it please thee to bless the house of thy servant, that it may continue for ever before thee: for thou, O Lord God, hast spoken it: and with thy blessing let the house of thy servant be blessed for ever. Amen."

With the final blessing came a palpable change in the pavilion. The hum dissipated, and suddenly Bill was completely aware of his surroundings. To his surprise half a dozen police officers had crowded into the pavilion behind him. The spectators began to murmur and shift restlessly, and some began to drift away. Florence Hinton knelt beside her husband and gripped his infirm hands in her own. It occurred to Bill, looking at them, that he'd never seen two more miserable people.

Bill stepped forward, the phalanx of officers behind him. "I'm Sgt. Bill Crowley with the Los Angeles Police Department. Rev. Hinton, do you need medical care?" The man shook his head. Bill glanced at Pepper. "Then we need you to come downtown with us."

Florence Hinton glared at him. "Can't you let him recover?" she snapped.

"The shooter is still on the loose, ma'am," Bill said. He leaned over to help support the reverend.

The man looked up at him, his dark eyes not angry like his wife's but, instead, impossibly sad. "Why didn't you let him kill me?" he asked in the peculiar strangled tones.

Bill stared at him, not sure how to answer the unexpected question. What had they gotten themselves into?


	3. Chapter 3

Bill watched Rev. Hinton through one-way glass as Pete and Joe took his statement. He looked different than he had in the park. Not as pale. Less weak. Younger even. Also gone were the stroke symptoms. Mostly anyway. Occasionally his voice still slurred. The symptoms had faded so gradually that Bill had to concede that Hinton was either the world's best actor or they had been real. He wondered what kind of medical condition would come and go like that.

The door opened behind him. "Got some information on the people Hinton healed today," Pepper said.

Allegedly healed, Bill mentally filled in. "Yeah?" He didn't turn away from the window.

"The woman you saw was Ellie Prescott. Seventy six years old. Suffered three strokes in the past six years. Bed-ridden for the past two. The other was a kid…"

"A kid?" He flipped off the intercom and glanced toward her. "He uses kids in his act?" Disgust mingled with anger.

"Kenny Myers. Six years old. Diagnosed with leukemia eighteen months ago. Not expected to live out the month." She paused, and then added. "Both walked out of the park under their own power."

He growled under his breath and shoved a chair out of his way, wincing at the jolt to his shoulder.

"They're real people, Bill," she said. "I checked the stories myself."

"Did you get pictures of these real people?" he asked, turning and making eye contact for the first time. "Just because Ellie Prescott and Kenny Myers are real people doesn't mean they were on that stage today, and it sure doesn't mean Hinton healed them." He grabbed his jacket and tried to put it on without jostling his left arm.

Pepper took the jacket from him and helped him slip it on. "You need to get that shoulder checked out," she said.

"Later. Let's do this."

.

Conversation stopped when Bill and Pepper walked into the small interrogation room, a room made even smaller with four detectives crowded in. The reverend made eye contact with them and regarded them impassively. Cold, Bill thought. Cold to sit there without looking nervous or concerned or even indignant.

"You seem to be feeling remarkably better," Bill said.

"The effects are just temporary," Hinton replied.

"Effects of what?"

"After a healing, I take on that person's affliction for a short time period. Uncomfortable, but…" He paused and considered the situation. "…I suppose it's worth it."

Bill cocked his head. "You suppose? You can miraculously heal the sick, giving hope to the hopeless, and you're not sure a little pain on your part is worth it? Seems like a pretty small price to pay."

Instead of rising to the bait, Hinton looked… melancholy… for a moment, and then with a faint smile, said, "You don't believe those people were healed today, do you, Sgt. Crowley?"

"No, I don't."

He nodded. "I don't blame you. I wouldn't believe it either, if I weren't living it. I didn't believe it," he amended. "Even after I saw it. Sounds like a bunch of hocus pocus. Lay on hands and the dead will rise. Nonsense."

Bill snorted. "Odd line of work for a skeptic."

For the first time, the minister's eyes brightened. "Nope. It's a job for a charlatan. Someone trying to get rich off the misfortunes of others."

Bill leaned forward. "Is that why someone is trying to kill you?"

The man shook his head, and the sadness that had receded for a moment settled over him again. "I'm not rich, Sergeant. Far from it. I don't charge for this. It's a duty that God has called me to perform."

"Donations. To the host church? You're living off something other than manna from Heaven."

"No donations," he said. "These people have been wiped out by medical bills and insurance premiums. Too many who truly need help have nothing to offer, so we ask nothing. The churches who host us provide for our needs and pay a small stipend, enough to cover basic expenses."

"Oh, come on!" Bill's voice was overloud with sarcasm. "No money at all? You're just doing this out of the goodness of your heart?"

"I'm not doing anything. God is."

"Who's trying to kill you?"

"I don't know."

"Bullshit!"

"Bill!" Pepper's voice was sharp.

Bill's gaze didn't waver. "If it's not about money, what's it about? Who could hate someone who can heal everyone he touches?"

"I'm not the healer; God is!" Hinton snapped. He looked away and added in a low voice, "And God doesn't always choose to save everyone."

Bill narrowed his eyes. "That's convenient. Your little scam doesn't work, and it's just 'God's will.'"

"Bill." Pepper took hold of his arm and tried to pull him toward the door.

His voice grew louder. "You let them think there's a chance, and then you crush their hopes by telling them it's God's will?" Pepper hooked her arm through his elbow and physically hauled him toward the door. "What kind of monster are you?" he yelled. Hinton met his eyes steadily until the door closed between them. Bill snarled and slammed his fist against the wall.

"What the hell are you doing?" Pepper demanded.

He whirled to face her, looming into her space. "Interrogating a suspect!"

She stood toe-to-toe with him and poked him in the chest with her index finger. "He's not a suspect. He's the victim!"

"He's lying!"

"Yes, he is! And we won't find out why with you in his face."

Bill grit his teeth. "Fine." He dug the patron saint medal out of his pocket. "While you're cuddling and sweet talking your way to the truth, why don't you ask him about that?" He thrust it into her chest hard enough to rock her back on her heels, and then strode past her without another word.

.

Pepper stood with her head against the door until her blood pressure dropped below explosive, then slipped back into the interrogation room. Rev. Hinton looked over at her when she came through the door, and she was again struck by the gentleness and compassion he seemed to radiate. It was inappropriate to apologize during an interrogation, but she heard "I'm sorry" tumbling from her lips just the same.

He shook his head and waved her off. "It's nothing I haven't heard before. Many, many times. My line of business tends to inspire… heated reactions."

"How long have you been in this line of business?" she asked, sliding onto the corner of the table.

"Four years, June 18th."

"That's very precise."

He managed a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "When everything you knew gets turned upside down, you tend to remember."

"What happened?"

Although he'd probably been asked that question a thousand times, the flood of emotions that crossed his face and infused his body were so raw that Pepper's heart ached for him. "I committed a sin. I coveted another man's gift. And God punished me for it."

"He punished you by enabling you to heal the sick?"

"He punished me by giving me exactly what I asked for." Hinton's expression was bleak, and when he blinked she knew he wasn't seeing her or the tiny interrogation room anymore. "One of my parishioners had a brother. A fireman. Honest to God hero. Always able to find the ones who were lost in the fires. Almost always saved 'em too. But things had taken a turn for him. He hadn't been able to save a young woman, and he was depressed. My parishioner wanted me to talk to him, pray with him."

"Did you?"

"I tried. He wasn't very open to the power of prayer at that point. He was angry. Bitter. Not what I expected a hero to be. I admit, I was frustrated and disappointed. He had been given this amazing blessing, and he didn't appreciate it! I knew if I had the gift of saving people, I'd be on my knees praying my thanks every day." He shook his head at the irony. "I told him that too," he added wryly.

"I take it that didn't go over well?"

"Actually, he laughed."

"Laughed?"

The minister nodded. "Made me mad too. Madder'n a wet hornet. I guess you can add pride to that list of sins. He looked up at me, and his eyes almost seemed to glow. I swear they looked right into my soul. He asked me if I wanted it - the gift. Told me to think real careful before I answered. I didn't have to think. I told him straight out, absolutely."

"And then what happened?" The three detectives leaned forward, rapt on the story.

Hinton shrugged. "Nothing. He just told me to be careful what I wished for and left. Honestly, I'd probably have forgotten him by now if it hadn't been for Addie May.

"Addie May Watson was our next door neighbor," he explained to their questioning looks. "About a week later she knocked over a pot of boiling water and burned herself pretty bad. I sat with her while my wife called the doctor and rustled up some bandages. Thing was, by the time Flo got back, Addie May didn't need any bandages. It was like she hadn't even been burned. But my skin was blistered something fierce. At the time I didn't even have sense enough to call it a miracle. It was just…"

"Weird?" Pete offered.

Hinton managed a smile. "Very weird. A few days after that, Flo cut her finger while making dinner. Nothing serious - nothing a kiss and a Band-Aid wouldn't take care of. Thing was, she didn't need the Band-Aid. Within seconds - we watched it happen - her finger healed and mine started bleeding. That's when we knew something miraculous had happened. But we didn't understand."

"Understand what?" Pepper asked.

"The price. Soon we had people camped in our yard every day, every night. Some people thought I was the second coming of Christ. Others thought the power came from somewhere a little more nefarious. And then there were those who just thought I was a charlatan. Non-believers can be very angry people."

Pepper flushed, thinking of Bill's behavior.

"So we started traveling church to church," the minister continued. "And four years later we still are."

"That's a long time away from home," Joe said.

He nodded. "We used to talk about, 'When we go home' we'll do this or that, but over time, even the hope of home faded away. We don't have a home anymore. Just places to hang our hats until it gets too crazy, then on to another just like it."

"So the miracle became a burden," Pepper said.

He nodded and fixed his gaze on her. "Do you believe what you saw in the park was real?" he asked.

"It might have been," Pepper said carefully. "It could have been set up."

"Would you like a demonstration?"

Excitement buzzed in the pit of her stomach. "Here?" The drab interrogation room hardly seemed the proper setting for a miracle, real or staged.

"Men build churches, not God." The minister looked at Joe and gestured to his injured knee. "May I?"

Wariness flickered over the detective's face. His dark eyes flicked to Pete, who shrugged, and then settled steadily back on Hinton. A curt nod signaled his permission.

Pepper released a breath she hadn't been aware she was holding. Hinton nodded at Joe, and even though he didn't smile, she was again struck by the comfort that seemed to radiate from him. He laid his hand on Joe's bandaged knee.

"No prayer?" Pepper asked. "And this morning you asked Ellie Prescott's husband to tell you about her. Was that just part of the show?"

"None of it is 'part of the show,'" he chided. "I always pray, though not necessarily aloud. God doesn't need me to speak aloud to ask His help, but sometimes the person I'm healing does."

"And Ellie's husband?" she persisted.

"I've found that when someone tells me things about the person they love, it focuses their energy on what I'm doing. That kind of love has a power of its own. It's not necessary, but sometimes it helps."

"What is necessary? Belief?"

He shook his head. "No. Belief doesn't make something real or unreal."

"What then?"

"Only God."

"You're just channeling God's energy? You play no part?"

An almost palpable sadness settled over him. "I didn't say that," he said. He moved his hand away from Joe's leg. "I'm tired, Sergeant, and I'm sure my wife is tired of sitting in your waiting room. May I go now?"

"What about the demonstration?"

He tilted his head. "It's done."

Her eyes widened, and she looked to Joe for conformation. He looked down at his leg and tentatively wiggled it. "Hey, it doesn't hurt!" He stood up and eased weight onto it. Took a few steps. Then jumped up and down. "It doesn't hurt at all." His voice was filled with awe. "It's like it never happened."

Pepper's gaze drifted from Joe's apparently healed knee to the minister's. Hinton rubbed his knee, and even from her perspective, the swelling was obvious. "But now your knee…?"

He waved off her concern. "It's temporary. A minor inconvenience for a great gift, wouldn't you say?"

Pepper blushed, remembering Bill's words earlier. She didn't meet Hinton's eyes as he pushed himself to his feet. She guessed he had little choice but to accept Joe's supportive arm. The minister limped heavily toward the door, and then stopped and turned back to her.

"Your Sgt. Crowley is a skeptic, but he's not the kind of person I was talking about earlier. The kind of person I meant is threatened by what I do, threatened by the thought that there could actually be a God out there, seeing what we do, caring about what we do. That's not why your sergeant is so angry. There's pain behind his anger." He waited until he saw understanding in her eyes, and then turned to leave.

Bill. That reminded her. "Wait!" She dug the patron saint medal out of her pocket and handed it to him. "Do you recognize that?"

His thumb stroked the face of the saint almost reverently, but he shook his head when he handed it back to her. "I've never seen it before," he said.

She nodded and let him leave then. She sat in the empty room for a long time, staring at the medal. She still wasn't sure what to make of Albert Hinton, but she knew one thing for certain. He lied about the medal.


	4. Chapter 4

Bill rarely got drunk. Oh, he enjoyed a couple of beers with the guys or a shot of bourbon to relax after a long day, but he rarely drank to get drunk, especially when he was angry or depressed. Tonight, though, he was both, and he decided that was a special circumstance. He was careful though. He drank just fast enough to keep a solid buzz without tipping over into plastered. Just enough to dull the urge to shoot Hinton himself. Lying bastard.

Crowley dragged a stepladder from the kitchen into his bedroom and pushed years of accumulated junk around the top shelf of his closet until he could reach the box he had stored up there. He set the cardboard box on his coffee table and dug through it until he found what he was looking for - a dark red photo album.

Its scent, the smell of old Polaroids and the glue used to stick them to the now-musty paper, wafted up when he pulled it out. A memory of his grandmother flashed into his mind. Nonna, with the flashing dark eyes and quick laughter who always smelled like she'd just come in from the vineyard, even when she lived with them in Oklahoma. When he was little, they would sit in her rocking chair, and she would point to pictures taken long before he was born and tell him about the people and events, moments frozen in her memory the way those moments with her were frozen in his. His finger slid across the red vinyl and toyed with the corner, lifting and releasing it several times. Finally, he set it down. Not yet. He poured himself another drink.

He was still staring at the closed cover an hour later when there was a knock at the door. He sighed; he knew who it was. He'd been expecting her since he left the station. Still, he didn't hurry, half hoping she'd give up and leave him alone.

"Open up, Crowley. These shoes are new, and my feet hurt too much to stand on your doorstep."

He opened the door. Shoulder against the doorframe, she was already unfastening her sandals. She pulled off the shoes and stood straight. Her gaze traveled from his face down to the drink in his hand and then back up again. Her eyebrow raised a fraction of an inch, but she didn't say anything. She just waited.

After a long moment, he stepped aside and let her in. She tossed something at him as she passed, and he caught it instinctively. The medal.

"St. Jude," she said. She tossed her shoes near the door and sat on the couch, knees drawn to her chest so she could rub her feet. "Patron saint of lost causes."

"Hinton?"

She shook her head. "Father Kirk at the parish down the street. I'm pretty sure Hinton recognized it though. He seems pretty determined not to help us stop the guy who's trying to kill him." She shook her head. "Sad."

"Stupid is more like it."

"I mean Hinton himself. He's such a sad man. You don't think so?"

"I think he's cold as ice." Bill rubbed his thumb over the etched metal, and then took out his wallet and carefully tucked the medal inside.

"He's legit."

Bill's stomach lurched. He took a deep breath, then forced his jaw to relax and asked, "Do you want a drink?" He walked to the kitchen and added ice to his glass.

"Iced tea."

Her gaze burned into his back as he fixed her drink, and he could almost feel her questions. He handed her the tea, and then topped off his drink. Too agitated to sit, he paced, her eyes following his every step.

"He healed Joe's knee," she said after a minute.

He hesitated, then resumed pacing. "Okay." She kept staring at him. "What?" he demanded, turning to face her. "What do you want me to say?"

"I don't know, Bill. You've been pretty opinionated so far." He just glowered at her, so she sighed and shrugged. "Hinton claims to have gotten the 'gift' from a fireman back in Tennessee four years ago. He and his wife started moving church to church soon thereafter. It wasn't hard to check his story. He was reported as a fraud in pretty much every town he visited. Formal charges were rarely filed, and if they were, they were always quickly dropped."

He leaned against the door to the patio, staring out at the night beyond without seeing it. "Complaints?"

"Some. But apparently only one of the complainants was someone who had actually been treated by Hinton."

That penetrated the bourbon-induced fog. "When?"

She looked at him over the edge of her glass, her eyes bright. "About six weeks ago."

"Right before the threats started."

"Uh huh."

"Nature of the complaint?"

Deep breath. "Murder."

"Murder?" He hadn't expected that. Charges of fraud. Misrepresentation. Not murder. "What happened?"

"A ten year old boy died. He had a severe form of Muscular Dystrophy. His parents brought him to one of Hinton's prayer meetings. The boy stopped breathing and was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics."

"Charges?"

"Dropped. No evidence of foul play. The boy was terminal."

Bill took a swallow of his bourbon, eyes focused on the night again. "Doesn't matter," he said, more to himself than to her. "If the parents really believed, it was the same as murder. It was like cutting out their fucking hearts."

"Is that what happened to you?" Her voice was soft, soft enough that he was compelled to turn back to her. She had set her tea down and was leaning forward, ready to talk, ready to listen, ready for whatever he needed.

There was so much compassion in her voice, he almost responded. But then the anger bubbled up again, and he swallowed the words. "Nothing happened to me," he heard himself say, and he turned away again. The bourbon was making him maudlin.

He closed his eyes and leaned against the sliding glass door, pushing his mind away from Hinton, away from the case, toward anything that would block the memories that kept threatening to overwhelm him. To his surprise what his mind locked on was Pepper. The way she stood toe-to-toe with him outside the interrogation room, her eyes flashing with anger. The way she looked in the pavilion in the park, soft and relaxed. The huskiness of her voice. He wondered suddenly what it would feel like to have her naked in his bed.

The thought shocked him out of his reverie. Damn, he needed to lay off the alcohol. He realized Pepper had asked him something. He turned and tried to focus on her. "What?"

"Is this your family?" she asked.

The red photo album lay open on her lap. He fought back the urge to snatch it away from her and gave a curt nod.

She trailed a finger over a photo. "Is this you?"

Leave it alone, Pepper. Despite his misgivings, he looked at the photo, and then settled on the couch beside her. "That one," he said, pointing to the three-year-old version of himself. "The kid with the ears is my older brother, Charlie."

"You have a sister too, don't you?"

He nodded. "Jane, but she's younger. She wasn't born yet."

Her finger settled on a photo of two adults on a beach. "Your parents?" He nodded. She pointed to another. "And this?"

Conflicting emotions washed over him. The black and white picture showed a young woman with dark, windblown hair sitting on a stone patio, looking at something out of the camera's view. "That's my grandmother," he said. "When she was young. That's her house in Italy. There was a vineyard down that path to the left, and beyond that was the sea."

Pepper arched her eyebrow. "You mean you really do have an Italian grandmother?" she teased. He swore at her in Italian, and she laughed. She bent her head over the album and studied the picture. "She's beautiful," she said finally. "Strong."

"She was." He pulled the album onto his own lap. Pepper curled up next to him, looking over his shoulder, her arm warm against his. The thought of her naked in his bed flashed through his mind again, and he shifted away slightly. "Shoulder still hurts some," he mumbled.

He flipped back to the beginning. "This was my Nonna's… my grandmother's… album first. The first photos are hers from the old country. Even most of the ones of us are ones she took."

Pepper reached over and traced an outline where a photo had been removed and others reset on the page. "What was here?"

"More pictures. Mom wanted us all to have some of the photos. She divided them up among the three of us kids." He turned the page and ran his finger over another empty space. "This one was a picture of the three of us at a country fair. My sister was in this red cowgirl outfit, and I was sitting on the back of this black and white pony." He shook his head. "I remember it grabbed her hat and wouldn't let go. She started to cry and then drew her toy gun and pointed it at the pony and demanded that he give back her hat or else."

She grinned. "What happened?"

"He gave back the hat. She was little, but she was fierce." Pepper laughed and, despite himself, Bill laughed too. "Now, in this picture…." He went through the album with her, sharing the stories behind the photos. At one point he stopped and refilled his glass. Pepper smiled less after that.

She gave a cry of dismay when she turned a page and found only blank pages beyond. "Where are the rest?"

"There aren't any more." He shut the album and placed it back in the box.

"But you couldn't have been more than ten or eleven in the photos. There have to be more."

"I said there aren't any!" he snapped and stood up. Guilt twisted his gut. He leaned against a chair and rubbed his hand over his eyes. "I'm sorry." It took him a moment to gather his words. "After my grandmother died, Momma kind of lost her heart for taking pictures." He looked at the bourbon in his glass and absently swirled the ice. "She lost her heart for a lot of things."

"How did she die?"

He shook his head. "It doesn't matter." He took a deep breath to try to force away the knots of tension in his stomach. A moment later, Pepper's hand touched his arm. "Leave it alone, Pep," he insisted, turning away from her.

"I can't." She gripped his arm, tighter this time. "Come on, Bill. Talk to me."

Thirty years disappeared in a haze of raw emotion. "Faith," he said through clenched teeth. He drained his glass. "Her faith killed her." The glass exploded against the far wall. The movement wrenched his injured shoulder forcing a growl from him. He closed his eyes and grit his teeth against the shockwaves of pain, physical and emotional.

He expected her to back off. Maybe to leave. Or maybe to lecture him. He didn't expect to feel her arm, soft but firm around him, guiding him back to the couch. When he sat down, he didn't expect her to scoot in beside him and begin massaging his shoulder. He sighed, feeling the tension and pain melt away under her gentle ministrations.

"She had cancer," he said finally. An image of his grandmother flashed through his mind. Rail thin and weak, eyes and cheeks sunken, unable to get out of her bed during the last weeks. How different from the vibrant woman who had pulled him into her lap and woven fanciful tales of long-ago Italy. "She was devout, always. Being sick didn't shake her for a minute. 'Trust in God,' she said. 'It'll be all right.'"

What he remembered most was her eyes, eyes that could twinkle with amusement or flash with anger. Even at the end, when she couldn't even lift her head, her eyes shone with a light that saw him, really saw him. "Momma begged her to go to the hospital and take the treatments the doctor ordered, but she wouldn't. She went to church instead."

He remembered the priest, a man so young he must have been newly out of seminary, sitting next to her bed counseling her. "Her priest told her to stay firm, that God would be with her and would reward her, if she just had enough faith." He shook his head bitterly. What had the baby-faced priest known about death?

He fell silent for long minute, remembering the last days. Her faith had never wavered. When he would slip into her room, she would encourage him to sit next to her and read her the twenty third Psalm. He read it again and again until he could recite it from memory. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

"I was eleven when she died. And I tell ya, Pep. I spent a lot of time in that room before she died, and I never saw God there."

Pepper exhaled softly and one hand left his shoulder briefly. Bill knew, even without looking, that she was wiping away tears. He closed his eyes and absorbed the comfort that came from her hands and her presence. As her deft touch soothed the pain in his shoulder, he felt the pain in his heart reluctantly surrendering to an odd peace. He leaned back against her and felt her lips brush against his head. It wasn't a religious miracle, but it was healing, and Bill was grateful.


	5. Chapter 5

There were far too many people in the squad room for a Saturday morning, Bill noticed. Not just his immediate team - their presence didn't surprise him, though they shouldn't be working on the weekend either - but most of the Criminal Conspiracy Unit. He made a mental note to both thank them and insist they take their weekends off. His people were dedicated. Sometimes too dedicated.

"We found the fireman," Pete said, following him into his office.

Bill surveyed his desk and sighed. The Calabrese expense reports were right where he left them and no more complete. "Yeah?" He scanned the top report. Jesus, how much could one surveillance team eat?

"He left Tennessee a couple of years ago and moved in with his ailing mother. You'll never guess where."

Bill looked up. "Where?"

"Long Beach," Pepper said. She handed him a cup of coffee and slid onto the corner of his desk.

"You're kidding."

Her eyes sparkled. "Just a short twenty minute ride to the answers to all of your questions."

Bill grunted and sipped at the coffee. Two sugars and half a creamer, just like he liked it early in the morning. Later in the day he switched to black, but the last time his belt had gotten too tight, he'd gotten in the habit of substituting sweetened coffee for the sweetened pastries that were too often passed around the office. "Any more info on the boy who died?"

Joe handed him a folder. "Freddie Kowalski. Son of Paul and Lucy Kowalski. Lived in La Grande, Oregon."

"Talked to the parents?"

"Conveniently unreachable," Pete said. "We managed to track down another relative who said they were out of town."

"And how long have they been 'out of town'?" Bill asked in a voice that managed to simultaneously express annoyance and disbelief.

"Couple weeks at least."

Bill regarded the folders on his desk wistfully. The expense reports had to wait at least another day. He hoped Pepper remembered this next month when her reimbursement check for that damn designer dress was late. "All right," he said finally, "keep digging on the kid's parents. Somebody has to know where they are. Be creative and see if you can't get someone to spill something." He pushed away from the desk and stood up. Damn, he hadn't even had a chance to take off his jacket. "You want to take a ride out to Long Beach?" he asked his blond partner.

"Thought you'd never ask."

She fell in step beside him and pressed something into his hand. He looked at the two tablets and then back at her quizzically. "What's this?"

"For your headache." Any implied jibe was tempered by the gentle humor and compassion in her eyes. She flashed a smile and then strode ahead, her hips sashaying in a most beguiling manner. Bill shook his head, tossed the Aspirin back, and followed her to their car.

Long Beach was an ocean town, and about ten degrees cooler than Los Angeles. Still, the property where Jeb Tucker, the fireman who had supposedly gifted Hinton with the power to heal resided overflowed with the desert plants that thrived inland. Brightly-colored bougainvillea and flowering cacti shared the lot with an aging, but well kept, bungalow and two large, black Labrador retrievers.

A man Bill judged to be around forty met them at the door before they could knock. "Can I help you?" he asked.

Bill held up his badge. "I'm Sgt. Crowley, and this is Sgt. Anderson. We're here to ask you some questions about…"

"Albert Hinton?" Bill hesitated, wondering if Hinton had called ahead to warn Tucker of their visit. Tucker scowled and shook his head. "What? You think you're the first cop to track me down? I've had half a dozen of you show up at my door over the past few years, and twice that many call. Let me guess, you want to know if he's a fraud."

"Is he?"

Tucker sighed and motioned them inside, holding the door so the dogs could come in too. The front door opened into a cozy living room with light blue walls and decidedly feminine furniture. Stacked boxes filled the space behind a wingback chair, and two half-packed boxes threatened to overload the small coffee table.

"Are you moving?" Pepper asked.

He shook his head. "My mom passed away about a month ago. I'm packing up her knick-knacks and stuff. House is paid for, so I figure I might as well live in it. Got some work to do on it though."

Bill grinned. "Not exactly a bachelor pad?"

Tucker pulled a porcelain cardinal out of a box, cringed, then tucked it away again. "Not exactly. Good woman, but she went a little crazy with the frilly stuff after my dad passed on. I guess it was tough on her living with a sports-lovin', meat-and-potatoes kind of guy for all those years."

The dogs led them through the kitchen to a small den. Wood paneling, deep green accents, and a duck hunting print on the mantle established this as the male domain in the house. Only one packing box had found its way in here. It was tossed haphazardly among pillows on a sofa. Bare spots on the wall above it hinted at its contents.

Pepper walked over and pulled out a framed box. "Your medals?" she asked, holding it up.

Tucker nodded. "I couldn't stand to look at the things, but Mom insisted on displaying them."

Bill pulled other frames from the box. Newspaper articles describing his valor. Headlines counting his miraculous rescues. Photos of a grim-faced Tucker receiving awards from smiling politicians. "It looks like you're quite a hero."

"Was," Tucker corrected. "It was a long time ago."

"You must be very proud," Pepper said.

Tucker took the framed box from her and regarded it for a long moment an unreadable expression on his face. "Most miserable time of my life," he said finally.

Bill and Pepper exchanged a glance. "Why?" she asked.

He shook his head and tossed the medals back in the cardboard box. "You have any idea what it's like to be burned alive, to feel your skin blister and then crisp to black? I'll never get that out of my head."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't realize…"

"Haven't you talked to Hinton? Didn't he tell you how it works?" His voice grew hard. "All those people. Horrific injuries. I saved them and nearly died every time."

"Why didn't you stop?"

He shook his head and turned away. "I couldn't." He ran a hand through his hair. "I had a… an obligation.

"To who?" Bill asked.

"Hinton thinks it's God," Tucker said.

"You don't?" Pepper asked.

"Angel or demon or something else, I don't guess it matters." He went into the kitchen and picked up the dogs' bowls. "I had to try to save 'em no matter what the cost." He filled the bowls with kibble and then set them down again. "And make no mistake," he said, standing up again. "There was a cost. Higher than any other I've ever paid. They didn't tell me that when I signed up. Or…" He shrugged and shook his head again. "Maybe they did, and I just didn't want to hear it. I know I warned Hinton, and he didn't listen either."

"How'd you get it?" Bill asked. "The, uh, Gift."

"Nurse in Chicago. I was up there for some specialized training, and I bumped my head. Must have been a slow night in Emergency, because she sat with me all night. Long story short, she offered me the Gift, and I was arrogant enough to take it. Now, if that's all, I really need to get back to packing." He walked them back to the front door.

Pepper hesitated on the front step. "May I ask you one more question? A personal one?" Annoyance flitted across his face, but he nodded. "Your mother… she was sick for a long time?"

"You want to know why I didn't take her to Hinton so he could heal her." The corners of his mouth turned up, but there was little humor in his smile. "The Gift gave me a powerful appreciation of life, Sgt. Anderson," he said. "It also gave me a powerful appreciation of the natural order."

"Including death?"

"Especially death."

.

Neither spoke on the drive back to the station, both lost in their own thoughts. Pete and Joe listened solemnly as they recounted the interview.

"It seems to confirm what we found," Pete said. "Newspapers in and around Memphis wrote pretty regularly about his miraculous rescues for probably five years. Then the stories just seem to stop. It's not too long after that we get the first story about Hinton."

"Hinton said something about that yesterday, didn't he?" She searched her memory, trying to remember his words.

Joe came to her rescue. "Yep. He said Tucker hadn't been able to save someone, and after that he got depressed."

"Sounds like Hinton himself," Bill said. "Why don't you two see if you can track down that nurse Tucker mentioned?"

"Already done," Pete said. "Tucker mentioned her name in an interview he gave a long time ago, and I figured I'd check her out." He dug out a notepad and skimmed his notes. "Joanne Maitland. Nurse at Methodist Hospital in Chicago for 20 years. Retired nearly ten years ago, but I managed to find someone who knew her. Said she was considered the best nurse the hospital ever had. Supposedly her personal file was so full of letters from patients that credited her with saving them that they had to give it its own box. Then something happened and it all changed."

"Let me guess - a patient died," Bill said.

"A patient died," Pete confirmed. "She retired soon after and relocated to Michigan."

"After giving the Gift to Tucker," Pepper filled in.

Bill leaned back in his chair, thinking. "Three people. All credited with a string of miraculous healings. All experience a turn of fortune after failing to save someone. Why?"

Pepper frowned. "What do you mean 'why'?"

"They don't lose the Gift. We saw Hinton heal two people yesterday." It was the first time he had admitted believing in Hinton's abilities, but the others didn't seem to notice. "Didn't he say in the interrogation room that God doesn't always choose to save everybody? Sounds to me like it's happened more than once."

"Maybe not," Pete said. "Maybe he was just referring to the one kid."

"Maybe." Bill wasn't convinced. "I want to ask him." He looked at Pepper. "You up for a ride to south LA?"

She hesitated. "I would, but it's Saturday…."

Saturday. Cheryl. Bill nodded. "I'll go talk to Hinton myself then." He stood and pulled on his bomber jacket. He'd finally figured out how to slip it on without jostling his injured shoulder. "Have you two found that kid's parents yet? The ones who accused Hinton of murder?"

"Getting close I think," Joe said. "A couple of leads anyway."

"Keep at it, and let me know what you find."

"Meet you back here middle of the afternoon?" Pepper asked.

"Don't you have anything better to do than hang around the station on a Saturday afternoon?"

She laughed, her dark eyes sparkling. "Like what? Think I'd rather be doing something like getting ready for a date or spending an afternoon on the beach?"

Bill grunted and tried not to feel guilty. Too dedicated for her own damn good. He pushed thoughts of Pepper out of his mind on his drive through LA and concentrated instead on Hinton. There was something he wasn't telling them, something about the death of the boy from LaGrande.

"Tell me about Freddie Kowalski," he said a while later, standing in the living room of the parsonage where Hinton and his wife were staying.

Rev. Hinton regarded him for a long moment then shook his head. "Freddie Kowalski is dead."

"I know that. I want to hear what happened."

The minister turned to his wife who watched them from the doorway to the hall. "Honey, why don't you put on some coffee for the sergeant." The woman hesitated and shot a look at Crowley - suspicion? resentment? - and disappeared into the back of the house. Hinton waited until he was sure she was gone and then turned back to Bill. "The boy was severely ill, dying. God chose not to save him."

Something about the ease with which he said the words didn't feel right. It didn't read exactly as a lie, but Bill felt a familiar niggling in the back of his skull that meant he was on to something. "Has that ever happened before?" he asked.

Hinton nodded. "A few times. I've never been able to figure out why. Sometimes it just… doesn't work. Maybe He has other plans for those people."

"That must have been rough on them to get their hopes up like that."

He managed a small smile. "You'd be surprised actually. I think they knew it wasn't going to work. There's a certain acceptance in their eyes. Not bitterness or anger, just acceptance. Peace even."

"Was their peace in Freddie Kowalski's eyes?"

A tremor, almost too subtle to notice, passed through the reverend. A distant look came into his eyes as he remembered. "In the end, yes."

"But not at first," Bill pressed.

"No, not at first. Why are pushing about this, Sergeant?"

Bill met his eyes steadily. "Because I think Freddie Kowalski was different. I don't think it was just another case of God choosing not to heal him. I think you killed him."

Hinton's eyes opened wide. "Are you accusing me of murder?"

"I doubt any court could convict you. I'm just trying to get to the truth." The minister turned away but Bill followed. "I think you tried to save him. I think you wanted to save him. But when you couldn't for whatever reason, I think you chose to end his pain. And I think you used your Gift to do it."

Bill's words ravaged Hinton as surely as fists. The man visibly flinched, and his shoulders sagged. "Gift. That Gift was from God. It's for saving lives, not taking them! What I did… it's unforgivable." He slumped onto a chair and buried his face in his hands.

The animosity Bill had felt toward Hinton had changed. He wasn't sure when he stopped doubting Hinton's Gift and began believing his story, but he had. And he believed that the anguish he saw before him was real… and it made him angry. "I think that's arrogant," he said.

Hinton slowly raised his head, eyes wide with shock.

"God gave you a Gift…"

"A Gift I perverted!"

"…but He didn't ask you to _be_ Him." The minister sat frozen, Bill's words settling over him. "He didn't ask you to be perfect."

"I took a life." The sorrow in his voice very nearly broke Bill's heart.

"You ended a little boy's pain. If God had wanted to save that child, He could have, couldn't He? Do you believe that you're so powerful that He couldn't have saved him anyway?"

Hinton shook his head throughout the argument. "Of course not. But that doesn't change what I _chose_ to do. I committed murder."

"Maybe. Or maybe God knew what choice you would make and let you serve a higher purpose. Or maybe you did make a mistake. A horrible one. But that's why God forgives. Because we're human, and we're not perfect. No matter how great the blessing or Gift." Bill let the words sink in for a moment, then tugged his wallet from his pocket and took out the saint medal. He handed it to Hinton. "St. Jude, but I think you know that."

The minister ran his thumb over the medal and nodded.

"Did Freddie Kowalski's parents carry a medal like this?"

Hinton pushed it back at him. "Does it matter?" He stood and walked to a window.

"Yes, it matters." Frustration made his voice sharp. "The person who's trying to kill you dropped this. If we can trace it, we can stop him."

Hinton shut his eyes and leaned his forehead against the glass. "If he kills me, the pain ends, and this all goes away."

"And so will the Gift," Bill said urgently, something akin to panic tightening his stomach.

"Gift?" Hinton tasted the word, appreciating its irony. When he turned to face Bill, his eyes had a preternatural gleam. "Do you want it, Sgt. Crowley?"

Excitement made his heart beat faster. Did he want it? An image of Pepper lying on the floor of her apartment, bleeding from Beth Lord's bullet flashed into his mind. To have been able to save her even a little of that pain….

Hinton raised his hand and interrupted his train of thought. The light in his eyes seemed to flicker, the perpetual sadness that lurked there shining through more strongly. "Think carefully before you answer. Do you really want that constant pressure to save everyone you meet? Do you want the publicity, the loss of privacy? You'll be giving up your chance for a normal life. For family. Vacations." He reached out, and Bill thought he was going to take back the St. Jude medal. Instead Hinton reached for what lay beneath it - Bill's wallet. He flipped through it until he found the picture he was looking for. He looked at it, smiled, and then showed it to him, as if to remind him of who it was. "You'll be giving up her."

Something seemed to change then. The odd light in his eyes faded, and he shook his head and clasped Bill's shoulder reassuringly. "No," he said firmly, cutting off whatever decision Bill may have made. "I won't give it to you. I won't give it to anyone." He gave Bill back his wallet and walked him to the door, hand still on his shoulder. "Blessing or curse, this ends with me."

.

Bill walked to the car, his mind so full that he was hardly aware of his surroundings. He sat in the front seat for a long time, staring at the picture of Pepper. How could he give up something he didn't even have? She was his partner, not his lover. Still, the thought of losing her made his stomach cold with fear.

How had Hinton known he carried a picture of her? No one knew that. Not even Pepper. Well, she knew he had the picture, but she didn't know he carried it in his wallet. They had been on a stakeout on the pier, and as the hours dragged by, they'd gotten bored. Pepper gathered up all of her quarters and dragged him into one of those instant photo booths, the kind where you sit in the curtained booth and it takes four pictures several seconds apart. The first several quarters had been wasted with silly pictures. He'd been annoyed at first and just made faces to irritate her, but they'd begun giggling and had way more fun than they should have had on the city's time.

When they got to the last quarter, Pepper had insisted that he be serious because she wanted at least one good picture of them. She sat between his legs, and he wrapped his arm around her waist, and they smiled for the camera. He impulsively kissed her cheek just as the camera flashed the second time. The third shot captured her surprise, her head turned somewhat toward him, a ghost of a smile on her lips. The final shot was Pepper settled back against his chest, both of them relaxed and happy. Bill had trouble choosing between the pictures, but he'd finally chosen the third one. To someone who didn't know what had happened just before, her smile looked mysterious. His head was tilted toward her, his gaze seeking hers. A secret moment, an intimate moment, captured.

He sighed and tucked the photo back into the recesses of his wallet. It was still early; she would still be visiting Cheryl. Middle of the afternoon suddenly seemed a long time away. He debated going back to the office and working on the expense reports, then decided to try to catch up with Pepper at Cheryl's school. It wasn't until he backed his car down the driveway that he realized his shoulder didn't hurt anymore.


	6. Chapter 6

The Austin School for Learning Disabilities seemed to Bill like a cross between an elementary school and a hospital. The front part was a converted house, and that was where the administrative offices, physical therapy rooms, and classrooms were. The bulk of the students at the Austin School came on a daily or weekly basis for intensive one-on-one therapy and then went home to spend the bulk of their lives as more or less regular kids. The rest of the kids lived in the winding new construction that stretched out the back of the converted house and then made a right angle and followed the edge of the adjacent lot. These were the more seriously disabled kids, the ones whose parents couldn't care for them on a day-to-day basis. This was where Cheryl Anderson lived.

The area in front of the residential quarters was almost park-like, and that was where Bill found Pepper and Cheryl. He hung back at the gate and watched them. Pepper sat at a picnic table, her arm around the girl who was focused on a fuzzy toy. Pepper pushed the toy along the top of the table, and two plastic antennae on its head lit up. Cheryl reached out and touched the lights, then let her hand drop. Pepper pushed the toy again, and the girl reached out again.

From a distance, they looked like a normal mother and daughter playing in the park. They were, however, neither mother and daughter, nor normal. Cheryl had been born to their mother when Pepper was twenty-five, and for the first four years of her life, she was completely, totally normal, everything a beloved little girl ought to be. Then Pepper's parents had died, and Cheryl had withdrawn into herself. Most people assumed she was autistic - Pepper generally gave that explanation rather than have to explain the whole story - but she wasn't. Her damaged psyche was holding her prisoner in her own mind.

Helping Cheryl was the most important thing in Pepper's world, even if she didn't talk about her sister often. Bill knew that. It was, in fact, rare for Pepper to talk about Cheryl at all, not because she was ashamed of the child, but because of the deep sense of responsibility she felt towards her. Pepper protected the girl from further shock by keeping her far from her life as a cop. Bill felt fortunate to be, even in a small way, on the inside of that protective wall.

"Hello, ladies," Bill said, sliding onto the bench next to Pepper.

Her eyes widened, and she smiled. "What are you doing here? Look Cheryl. It's your Uncle Bill."

The girl regarded him with solemn eyes. There was no flicker of welcome or even recognition, but Bill hadn't expected it. She turned away from him and looked at the toy on the table. Pepper obediently pushed it, and Cheryl again reached out to the flashing lights.

"Did you talk to Hinton?" Pepper asked.

Bill nodded. "Nothing that helps us track down the person who's trying to kill him," he said. He watched Pepper push the toy over and over, her bright smile when Cheryl reacted to the light never fading though he knew it hurt her to see so little progress. Sometimes she would cry after her visits. She never let him see, but her eyes would have that telltale redness. He'd never heard her express frustration or seen her hope falter.

"How did your parents die?" he asked.

Surprise crossed her features. She studied him a minute, then turned deliberately back to Cheryl. "Honey, do you see that ball over there?" She turned the girl's shoulders and pointed toward a basketball in the grass. "Do you think you could bring it to me?" Cheryl's face showed no reaction, no understanding, but she wandered off toward the ball just the same. Pepper waited until she was out of earshot and said, "They were murdered."

It was Crowley's turn for shock. Murdered? He'd assumed they were in a car wreck or other accident. But murdered?

"My father was a police officer," Pepper said, her gaze on Cheryl. The girl was kneeling by the ball, stroking it. "In Wyoming. It was a small town with very little crime, but I guess even really bad things can happen in small towns. He broke up a drug operation that had roots in a bigger city. He was warned to back off, but he was stubborn and stuck with it. Someone broke in one night and shot him and my mom."

"And Cheryl?"

"Saw the whole thing."

"And you?"

"I was married and living in LA, but I was in town visiting friends. I… found them." Her eyes stayed focused on Cheryl, but Bill guessed that she was seeing something much further away. The hand that absently pushed the fuzzy toy on the table top trembled.

"I'm sorry," he said. Sorry she and Cheryl had gone through it. Sorry he'd dredged it up. Sorry he couldn't find the person who killed her parents and make him resemble Swiss cheese.

She turned to him and tilted her head. Then she smiled. "It was hard, but it made me want to be a cop."

"To vindicate your father?"

"At first. But I saw what the officers he worked with went through when they tracked down the people responsible. That anger and bitterness. I felt it too… but I knew wasn't what my father would have wanted. He didn't become a cop to teach the bad guys a lesson. He just wanted to make things better. For everyone. So that's what I'm trying to do, and it hasn't worked out so bad."

Make things better. Had anyone else said it, Bill would have said they were either naïve or full of shit. But he knew Pepper Anderson, and he believed her. When they first met, he saw her ability to empathize with the people she met, to see criminals as people who made wrong choices in bad situations, as a weakness. He believed it would eat alive, burn her out - or worse. The first time he'd seen her breakdown and cry, he'd told her to quit before her hysterics got someone killed. Then he saw the results, saw the hardened criminals she'd duped - guys who should have hated her - confess and all but beg her forgiveness. Saw junkies and hookers and scam artists turn snitch at risk to their own lives. They trusted her, even though she was a cop.

If anyone could make the world better, it was Pepper, but Jesus, what a price she had paid to find her path. Thinking out loud, he said, "Do you think there's a greater purpose? A Plan?" The question suddenly seemed silly, and he blushed, but she considered it seriously.

"Yes, I think so. But not in a passive, predetermined sense. I think you have to fight for it, make it happen."

He looked out at Cheryl who had wandered away from the ball and was now running her fingertips over the bark of a tree, stroking it over and over. "But what if you fight, and it doesn't happen? What if you give it everything, and God doesn't answer?"

She followed his gaze to Cheryl. He expected to see her eyes darken, but instead a soft smile graced her features. "God always answers," she said. "But sometimes the answer is no. So you pick yourself up and keep going."

"For how long?"

"As long as it takes. I think that's what it's really about. Enduring, no matter what." She turned her serene gaze on him. "And in the end, the blessings always outnumber the disappointments."

What blessings? he thought. Parents brutally murdered. Saddled with a disabled sister who doesn't even seem to recognize her. Divorced and working paycheck to paycheck.

As if reading his mind, she laid her hand on his wrist and said, "I have enough money to make sure Cheryl is safe and cared for. I have a good life, a good job, good friends, and a great partner." Her smile was infectious, and he couldn't help but return it.

"Don't you feel alone sometimes?" he asked.

Her fingers slid into his hand, and the corners of her mouth turned up in a smile that warmed him to his soul. "Bill," she said, "I'm never, ever alone." She leaned against him and turned her attention back to her sister.

He looked down at the fingers entwined in his, and it occurred to him that at that moment she wasn't talking about her relationship with God.


	7. Chapter 7

Bill put any discussion of his conversation with Hinton on hold until after Pepper's visit with Cheryl. As they walked to their cars, he filled her in on what had really happened to the boy and Hinton's part in it.

"Did you learn anything else?" she asked.

He thought for a moment then shook his head. "Nothing important."

As they approached their cars, Bill's radio crackled to life. "12Y52 to 12Y50. 12Y52 to 12Y50. You there, Bill?"

Bill and Pep exchanged a glance, and he reached through the open window and grabbed the mike. "We're here, Pete. What's up?"

"Got a location on Freddie Kowalski's parents. They're staying at the Tropical Oasis motel in South LA."

"On West Slauson?"

"That's the one. Corner of Olive. Within a convenient couple of miles of Bethlehem Baptist Church."

Bill snorted. "And even more convenient to I-110."

"Fast getaway?"

"Certainly raises my suspicions." Pepper turned away from her own car and headed for the passenger side of his. "We'll head over and talk to them."

"You think they're the ones after Hinton?" she asked, sliding inside.

"We'll know soon."

The Tropical Oasis was neither. It was a rundown two-story motel in the heart of a business district that had more hookers than tourists and whose principle attraction was that it was dirt cheap. It boasted clean sheets every day, but since most of the rooms turned over several times within a 24-hour period, Bill didn't find that especially enticing. At least, he decided, as they turned into the parking lot, the Denny's next door could provide some reasonably decent food. He doubted he'd want to eat anything the Tropical Oasis provided, even in their vending machines.

The Kowalskis hadn't registered under their own name - oddly suspicious if they weren't trying to kill Hinton - but only one car in the lot had Oregon plates. The desk clerk was an overweight woman in too-tight clothes who paid more attention to a small black and white TV than to their badges. She rolled her eyes and sighed loudly when they asked her to come from behind the desk to see which car they were talking about.

"Room 201," she said, glancing out.

"Are you sure?" Bill asked.

The woman sighed again. "They're the only couple that has stayed more than a day."

"Why didn't you say that before?"

"You didn't ask that."

Bill glowered and headed toward room 201. Pepper followed, obviously having a hard time controlling her laughter. At his glare, she said, "Well, you didn't."

The two sobered as they approached the room. Knowing he could well come face-to-face with the armed man he'd pursued the day before, Bill motioned for Pepper to stand to the side of the doorway and knock. He rested his hand on his gun, ready if the situation called for it.

Cher answered the door. It wasn't really Cher, but the tall, slender woman with the long dark hair would have been a hit at a celebrity look-alike party, except for one striking difference. Instead of the amused, somewhat smug expression that characterized the off-beat singer, this woman's face was hard and bitter. There were circles under her eyes, and her lips were compressed into a fine line. She opened the door just far enough to get a good look at them and asked, "What do you want?"

Pepper flashed her badge. "Mrs. Kowalski?"

The woman's expression didn't change, but shock, fear, and finally anger flashed in her eyes. She looked at Pepper's badge, then at each of them, then stepped back so they could enter the room.

Bill scanned the room. "Rifle," he said, spying the firearm leaning against the far wall. He drew his gun, instantly on the offensive. Pep took Lucy Kowalski by the arm and held her inside the doorway while Bill checked the closet and bathroom. "Clear."

He holstered his gun and checked the rifle. Unloaded, but definitely the same type he'd seen the day before. "Your husband here, Mrs. Kowalski?" he asked.

Lucy grit her teeth and looked away.

He set the gun down and looked at the other contents of the room. The suitcases were packed, the room devoid of anything personal except for three framed photos carefully displayed on the dresser. One suitcase lay open on the bed. Bill wondered if he'd interrupted her packing or if she were going to wait until the last possible minute to put the pictures away. He picked up a photo of the woman, a man, and a child taken in happy times.

"Put that down!" Lucy demanded.

Bill shook his head and held it up. "This is the guy," he said to Pepper. To Lucy he said, "Yesterday your husband tried to kill Rev. Albert Hinton."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said and looked away.

Bill looked at the smiling faces in the picture. He'd barely have recognized the woman as the person standing in front of him. The woman in the picture was laughing and relaxed, her face soft and gentle and happy. He wouldn't have imagined her capable of the rage and hatred that were coming off of Lucy Kowalski in waves. But, then, this woman hadn't lost her son.

"I know what happened to Freddie," he said.

"You don't know anything."

"I know more than you think," he snapped. "I know you loved your son so much that the grief of losing him is eating you alive."

"I didn't lose him," she hissed. "He was taken from me. By that… that… bastard charlatan."

Bill shook his head. "Hinton's just a scapegoat. You're not mad at him. You're mad at God for not saving him."

"That's not true."

"You believed. You prayed, and you believed, and you knew that Hinton was real. You saw the healings yourself." She shook her head, but he persisted. "And when he told you that God doesn't save everyone, you weren't worried because you believed. You knew in your heart that your son was going to be healed. When he wasn't, you blamed Hinton because it was a hell of lot easier than blaming God."

"Shut up!" she screamed, turning away. She squeezed her eyes shut and pulled at her hair with both hands. "You don't know! You weren't there. You didn't see his eyes when the healing didn't work. You didn't watch him die. God didn't kill him. Hinton did!"

"But God let it happen," Bill said. She whirled on him, ready to protest, then inexplicably stopped, tears flooding her eyes. She roughly brushed them away and looked away again. Bill's voice softened. "Your faith - his faith - was strong, and when you heard about Hinton, it was the answer to your prayers. You were certain he was going to be healed. You believed it with all your heart. And when he wasn't, you didn't just lose him. You lost God."

Bill met Pepper's eyes. His own heart was pounding and not from adrenaline. Emotion rose in him, and his voice grew thick. "You prayed, and you got an answer." Lucy started to argue, but he raised his hand and cut her off, his voice growing even more soft. "The answer was no. The Plan may not be what you wanted, but it was right. It's always right. Now you have to let go and move on."

"No!" The word was almost a growl. Lucy's eyes hardened, and she stood straight. "I won't move on until the bastard who murdered my son is dead."

"We won't let you kill him."

She lifted her chin. "You're too late."

Bill's stomach dropped. "What do you mean?"

Lucy crossed her arms over her chest and turned away. "Figure it out."

Pepper shook her head. "If all they wanted was to kill him, they could have done that a thousand times. They want it to be public."

"There's not another prayer meeting until tomorrow," Bill said. "I looked at the schedule."

"Schedules change," Lucy sneered.

She was too sure of herself to be lying. Bill and Pepper stared at each other in horrified understanding, and then sprinted as one for the car. "Call for backup!" Bill yelled. It wasn't necessary. The radio was alive with sharp messages from Dispatch. Shots fired. Bethune County Park. Units requested to respond.

"Tell them what's happening!" Bill said.

Pepper grabbed the radio before her door was even shut. "12Y51 to Dispatch." She braced herself against the dashboard as Bill swung out of the parking lot and accelerated. She quickly explained the situation. "Dispatch, contact 12Y52 and 12Y53 and have them meet us at the park."

She barely got the words out before Pete's voice came through. "12Y51, this is 12Y 52. We're already on route."

Pepper acknowledged him, then hung up the radio and grabbed the dash with both hands. "Easy. I'd like to get there in one piece," she said.

Bill didn't answer. If anything, he drove faster. "Damn it!" he swore, slamming his hand on the steering wheel. "Hinton knew they were going to try again."

Slauson Ave. was fairly clear late on a Saturday afternoon. Weaving through traffic and blowing through red lights primed their adrenaline. Their senses felt heightened, their reflexes honed.

"Compton on your right," Pepper said.

"Hooper will be faster."

The car fishtailed on the turn, corrected, and roared down the residential street. Cars were parked on either side - people attending the prayer meeting at the park, no doubt - but no oncoming traffic hindered their progress. Two black and whites, lights flashing, arrived just in front of them. A chaotic stream of people leaving the pavilion confirmed their fears: Kowalski was already there.

Pete, Joe, and half a dozen uniformed officers were already in the pavilion when they sprinted in. A split second was all it took to assess the situation. Kowalski was on the stage, and he held Hinton around the neck, a revolver pointed at his temple. He'd chosen a bad place for his attack. The structure was open on all sides, and armed officers had him surrounded. As obviously frightened by the officers as he was, it hadn't distracted him from his primary purpose. His gun was pressed into Hinton's temple, and Bill knew any flinch would send a bullet into the minister's brain. If he turned the gun away from Hinton at any moment, a sharpshooter could take him out, but trained killer or not, Kowalski was no fool. His gun held firm.

"Back off! Just back off!" he was saying.

Bill lifted his hand to signal his presence, and a ripple of relief passed through the officers. "We can't back off, Kowalski. We can't let you kill him."

"You don't understand!"

"I do understand. I've talked to your wife. I know about Freddie."

"He killed him! He murdered my son!" Each word was punctuated with a shake that half strangled the gasping minister. Somewhere to the side Florence Hinton wailed.

Pepper made eye contact with Bill and then stepped forward. "I can't imagine what you've been through," she said gently.

"Stay back," he yelled, dragging Hinton between them as a shield.

She continued forward, hands held up, empty. "I'm not armed," she said in the same gentle tone. "I just want to talk."

"Talking won't bring back my son!"

"Neither will killing Hinton."

Bill kept his gun trained on Kowalski as she crossed all the way to the stage. His finger held light on the trigger looking for any sign that Kowalski was going to switch targets. Had his gun so much as wavered, Bill would have brought him down himself.

Kowalski remained perfectly still, his body almost visibly humming with tension. This man bore as little resemblance to the photo they had seen in the motel room as his wife did. Anger and grief had etched lines into his face and hardened his expression as they had his wife's, yet there was something different about him. He lacked the animalistic rage that had characterized her behavior. In its place was a desperate, desolate sadness that reminded Bill of Hinton himself.

Pepper's entire being radiated compassion. "You knew your son was terminal when you brought him here," she said. "You knew he might not be healed."

"Not healed isn't the same as dead," he said, his voice choking on unshed tears. "This bastard _murdered_ him."

"He died," she said.

"He died at his hand," Kowalski insisted. "My son was strong. He wanted to live."

"No, he didn't." Everyone swiveled to look at Bill. Bill looked past Kowalski to Hinton. "You owe him the truth," Bill said.

The minister's eyes widened, but he shook his head. "It doesn't matter," he wheezed.

"Shut up!" Kowalski yelled.

Bill ignored him. "It matters."

The two men stared at each other for a long moment, an invisible battle of wills being waged between them. Then Hinton sighed and gave an almost imperceptible nod. He started to speak, then stopped, then started and stopped again. Finally he said simply: "He asked me to do it."

Kowalski's eyes widened, and his face grew even paler. "No! You're lying!" But fear rendered the protest hollow. He released his hold on Hinton's neck and pushed him away from him. The minister lay still, gasping for breath, then pushed himself into a sitting position and looked up, first at the barrel of the gun pointed at him and then at the anguished eyes of the man holding it.

"No." Hinton met his eyes steadily. "He was in so much pain. He felt God with him, and he knew he wasn't going to be healed. He just didn't want the pain anymore."

Rage could no longer deny truth. Hinton's words tore at his soul, ripping away the anger, revealing the overwhelming grief that lay beneath. Kowalski sobbed once, his shoulders slumping forward. "It doesn't matter," he said, extending the gun. "Nothing is different!"

Bill aimed his gun. Only Pepper's raised hand stayed his shot. "It is different, Paul, and you know it, she said. He shook his head, but his hands were trembling. "Put down the gun," she said softly.

The bereaved man made eye contact with her, anguish lining his face, his body language pleading with her to understand. Her hand reached out slowly and then settled on his arm. In a gentle voice meant only for him she said, "This isn't what Freddie would have wanted."

The gun barrel wavered and finally sagged downward.

"No!"

The anguished cry caused everyone to turn. Lucy Kowalski stood at the edge of the pavilion, her face white with rage. "Shoot him!" she screamed. "Shoot him!"

Paul's eyes filled with tears. "Lucy…" he implored.

Bill caught hold of her as she stalked across the floor. "No!" she screeched again, struggling to pull away. "He murdered our son!" Bill's arm tightened, and she howled her frustration.

"Hey, leave her alone!" Kowalski said. He pushed past Pepper, Hinton forgotten, focused now only on his wife.

Pepper grabbed his arm and pushed herself between them. "Paul, she's fine."

He pushed on, desperate to reach and calm his wife. "Honey, it's over. We have to let it go."

"Not until he pays!" Kowalski's gun was just dead weight now, and he'd have let it fall had Lucy not suddenly grabbed at it. Despite Crowley's grip, she tried to swing it in Hinton's direction.

Pepper closed her hand over the weapon. "Lucy, please listen…."

The shot shocked them all.

Someone behind them screamed. Smoke from the shot grayed the scene. Behind Pepper dots of red appeared on a post.

As one their eyes dropped downward to the muzzle of the gun and then to Pepper's belly just inches in front of it. On the growing circle of red there.

She looked up and met Bill's eyes, her own wide with shock. The world froze for an interminable moment, and then her knees buckled.

Bill didn't remember thrusting Lucy Kowalski into Joe's arms. He didn't see Pete disarm her unresisting husband. He wasn't aware of anything except falling to the floor on his knees and pulling his partner into his arms. "Pep? Pepper? No. No. No…." He repeated the word like a litany. "No, no, no…."

Blood.

Too much blood.

Blood that bubbled under his fingers when he pressed them to her abdomen, and darker blood that soaked his legs underneath her.

Her hand slid up and covered his, then reached up and gripped his shirt, as if trying to anchor her to him in some tangible way.

He met her gaze again. In a second, the barest of moments, he saw it all. He saw her surprise and her terror, her anger and her acceptance. He also saw a question. The answer rose in him and stuck in his throat.

"Hang on," he begged.

The pavilion was silent except for her shallow gasps. Useless gasps unable to provide air to her suffocating cells. His body gulped air, subconsciously trying to ease her struggle. There was so much he had to tell her. There was time. There had to be time.

Her fingers tightened and he pulled her closer, resting his face against hers, willing away the spasm of pain that racked her body. "Pepper." Her name was a plea, a prayer.

The floral scent of Halston - just a hint - surrounded him and then was lost in the coppery scent of blood. He drew back and met her eyes again, his cheek wet from a tear that leaked from the corner of her eye.

Words formed on his lips, but he couldn't make himself say them, couldn't give her what she wanted. He wasn't ready. Time. He needed more time.

Mere seconds had passed around them. The crowd, shocked by the shot, had only just begun moving. Somewhere he heard someone calling for an ambulance, heard officers yelling into radios, heard quiet sobs and terrified yowling. But it was nothing to him. There was only her.

He looked into her eyes and begged her to understand. To forgive him.

Then something changed. In the middle of the chaos and the fear and the pain, the fog lifted from her gaze. What had been and what never would be condensed into an instant, a single moment of clarity. A gift for them both. He saw the truth in his heart reflected there, and then a ghost of a smile brushed her lips.

Then with only a faint exhale, her body stilled.

And she was gone.


	8. Chapter 8

Grief is heavy. As surely as physical weight squeezes air from your lungs, so does grief. It takes the oxygen from the air and the color from the world. Thankfully the body has a built-in protection system, or surely grief would stop a heart's beating with the pain of it.

Instead, Bill felt numb. He saw things, heard things, but they didn't register. He couldn't comprehend them, couldn't find meaning in them. The only thing that had meaning was the woman in his arms. He held her protectively close and rocked her, even though, somewhere in his mind, he knew it wouldn't make a difference.

Joe knelt beside him and spoke to him, but Bill couldn't parse the words. The people around him seemed to be gliding across the floor in an odd dance without sound or words. Hushed whispers floated past him, but he ignored them. There was only Pepper.

A warm hand on his shoulder compelled him to look up into a dark, compassion-filled face. "I'm so sorry," the minister said.

Bill didn't answer immediately. Hinton. Wasn't there something important about him? He frowned trying to remember what it was. A slender man knelt on the reverend's left side, physically supporting him. His wife was on his right. Somewhere it registered in Bill's mind that Hinton's legs weren't supporting him. He must have just done a healing. That was why he hadn't come when….

He looked down at the still body in his arms then back at the minister.

"Help her," he said.

Confusion, then sadness crossed Hinton's face, and he shook his head. "I can't, Sergeant. She's in God's hands now." He squeezed Bill's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

Bill looked at Pepper once more, then said, "Try."

Hinton's sad expression didn't change. "I can't, son. She's beyond my powers. I can't bring someone back from the dead."

Irrational fury rose in Bill. "Just try, damn it! Or give me the Gift and let me try!"

Hinton drew back, eyes wide. He shook his head. "No."

"If this is God's Plan…" Bill took a deep breath. "…I can accept it." He met Hinton's eyes without flinching. "But not without a fight. I will _not_ let her go without a fight."

The two men stared at each other. Florence Hinton tugged on her husband's arm. "Give him the Gift," she encouraged. Tears flooded her eyes. "Let him have it. Albert, let's go home!"

Albert Hinton reached over and patted her hand, but he didn't look away from Bill. Bill could see the struggle within him. After a seemingly interminable period of time, he turned to his wife and drew her close. "I can't. It's time to make things right."

"No! You've done enough," she sobbed.

He lifted her chin, smiled, and then kissed her forehead. "It'll be all right," he promised. They gazed at each other for a long moment, and then she nodded and yielded to him. Hinton motioned to the young man at his side to help him kneel in front of Bill.

Hinton reached out and squeezed Bill's shoulder again. Then he placed his other hand on Pepper's forehead. "Tell me about her."

Bill's breath caught. Images flew into his mind but the words stuck in his throat. "She's the best cop I know," he finally blurted and then mentally kicked himself. That wasn't what he wanted to say. He stroked her hair, smoothing it from her face, took a deep breath, and tried again. "She's beautiful." He glanced up at Hinton who nodded encouragingly. "Inside I mean."

Around him the air changed. Electrical energy made the hair on his arms stand up. The sounds around him muted until only the three of them existed. The words came then, freely. "She has this look, you know? She can floor me without even saying a word. Just gives me that look.

"Her voice. It's got this purr. I call her sometimes just so I can hear her talk. And laugh. There's this chuckle that just makes me happy to hear it.

"She's funny. Bawdy. Tells a great dirty joke." He flushed but kept going. "Holds her own with cops, and that ain't easy." He grinned despite himself. "She never stopped being a woman though. She's not afraid to cry. Turns on the waterworks at the drop of a hat. But she's tough. Never seen her give up on anything - or anyone.

"She believes in people. Really believes in them, even when they can't believe in themselves. Especially then. Almost makes me believe…."

A faint smile crossed his lips. "I didn't like women cops before her. But she changed that. She changed me.

"She has this way of looking at things. Always sees the good. I need her so I can see that good." He stroked her cheek with his thumb. "I need her." The words were almost forced from him. "I love her."

Something began to happen. Hinton's eyes were closed, his lips moving in silent meditation. If Bill squinted he could almost see the energy swirling around them. It seemed to draw together, focus around the hand on Pepper's forehead. But then it dissipated, only to swirl together again.

It wasn't enough. It wasn't working.

No. He wasn't giving up. Something. There had to be something he could do. From somewhere in the recesses of his mind came words he hadn't spoken in thirty years. "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." The words tumbled out unbidden. "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul."

Tears began to run down his cheeks. "He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of…" Understanding and an unbearable lightness flooded through him. He sobbed once and almost laughed. How could he not have known? "…Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

Bill squeezed his eyes shut and bowed his head. "Please, God. Please."

The scene exploded with a burst of energy. Bill opened his eyes and almost had to close them again to shield them from the tornado of white light that surrounded and enveloped them. Energy flooded through him, filling him, lifting him… and yet he didn't move. Across from him, Hinton sat up and extended his arms to the side, letting the powerful currents support and hold his body.

His eyes flew open, and a look of wonder infused his features. Bill wondered what he was seeing, what he was hearing. He must have been hearing something, because his brow wrinkled and his lips moved in earnest conversation. Then his brow smoothed and a beatific smile spread across his face. "Yes," he whispered. "Yes."

When he sat up and looked at Bill, the eyes Bill saw weren't Hinton's. Or, rather, they were, but not the eyes that Bill remembered. Gone was the pervasive sadness and in its place was a deep contentment and peace. He smiled at Bill and nodded, and then he reached down and laid his hand on Pepper's forehead.

Later Bill wouldn't be able to put words to what happened next. He remembered light, light so bright that he had to shut his eyes to its brilliance. Energy so powerful it should have incinerated him enveloped him, yet he felt no pain. It lasted only an instant. He tried to open his eyes, wanting desperately to see the miracle, but he couldn't.

A moment later it was over. Bill opened his eyes to see Hinton's gentle smile. The minister touched his shoulder, nodded, and then to Bill's horror, he crumpled to the floor.

Florence Hinton screamed and threw herself upon him, wailing.

Bill froze, not able to comprehend the scene in front of him. No. No, this wasn't right.

The young man who had helped Hinton before rolled him to his back. The minister gazed upwards, the peaceful smile still in place. He moved his lips, and his wife leaned forward to hear him. Through her tears she laughed and nodded. The minister gazed at his wife one last time, and then with a final gasping breath, he died.

Bill stared, horrified.

Florence Hinton touched her husband's cheek and then carefully closed his eyes. When she looked at Bill, the peace in her face mirrored that he had seen on Hinton's. "He was singing," she said.

The woman in Bill's arms shuddered and took a deep breath. Her fingers knotted in his shirt and clung to him. Hinton was forgotten then; there was only Pepper. Bill pulled her close until he could feel her heart beating against his chest. _Thank you._

Had his head not been near hers, he might have missed her whisper, so soft it was barely more than air.

"I love you too," she said.

.

"What was it like?" Bill asked. He lit a taper, and then, with a silent prayer, lit one of the vigil candles on the altar. A dozen of the tiny flames added their light to the other candles burning in the church. Light and cloud shadows played in patterns cast across the pews through the stained glass windows.

Pepper lit her own candle, and then snuffed out the taper in a bowl of sand. "It was warm. And safe. And beautiful."

"What did you see?" His voice was low, even though they were the only ones kneeling here by the altar. A priest had welcomed them when they'd arrived, but he'd since disappeared into the rectory.

"I don't know," she said. "After I woke up, I remembered everything so clearly, and I remember wanting so desperately to tell you something."

"What?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. Every day it gets more jumbled and faded. It's like it was a dream. All I know now is that I was safe, and I wasn't alone." She frowned with concentration. "My parents. I remember my parents. There was someone else too." She sighed. "I can't remember. Maybe it was just a dream."

"You don't have to remember," Bill said. "You're here. That's proof enough that it wasn't just a dream."

Her eyes grew sad. "But at what cost? Hinton's life? The loss of the Gift?"

"God gave the Gift once; He can give it again," Bill said.

She nodded and half shrugged. "I guess Hinton got what he was looking for."

"I think," Bill said, his brow furrowed, "that in the end he got more than he was looking for. He wanted absolution, and he found redemption."

Her fingers squeezed his. "So did you."

He nodded and thought of his grandmother, his Nonna, with her flashing dark eyes and infectious laugh. For the first time in thirty years, it didn't hurt to think of her. Instead of the old woman dying in her bed, the image of her in the photo in his album, the one of her as a young woman, sitting on her patio, looking out at the vineyards, her entire life ahead of her, flashed through his mind. "Yeah. So did I," he agreed.

He looked at Pepper. An entire world of new possibilities lay in front of them. He thought of the picture of her he carried in his wallet, the one that hinted at the secret between them. They'd almost squandered it. He touched her face, and then gave her a wry smile. "I want to kiss you," he said, "but I'm not sure it would be appropriate."

Pepper tilted her head and then looked up at the crucifix above them. "I think," she said, after considering the matter very seriously, "that God would approve just this once." And she smiled.

Her smile made his heart beat faster. He cupped her cheek, and then dropped his hands to her shoulders and pulled her closer. His first kiss was a pressure so light it felt as if angels' wings fluttered against their mouths - a faint brush, no more. Pepper closed her eyes in ecstasy - a taste of heaven.

"Non resterai solo," she said suddenly, pulling away.

"What?" Bill stared at her.

She frowned. "It just popped into my head. I remember hearing it - or something like that - when I was… you know. It doesn't make sense. Non resta… non restera…"

"Non aver paura. Non resterai solo," Bill filled in.

Pepper's eyes opened wide. "That's it! How did you know?"

Emotion rose in him, and he was reminded of the lightness he felt during Hinton's miracle. "It's the last thing my Nonna said to me before she died." _Non aver paura, piccolino. Non resterai solo. _Don't be afraid, little one. You won't be alone.

And he wasn't.

He squeezed Pepper's shoulders and lowered his forehead to hers. So many miracles. Outside the sun broke through the clouds, and golden light streamed through the stained glass and enveloped and warmed them. She lifted her face to his, and their lips met again and that, he decided, was the most beautiful miracle of all.

The End


End file.
